


Same Shit, Different Day

by cosidrix



Category: Persona 5, Shin Megami Tensei
Genre: Anger, Anger Management, Canon-Typical Violence, Conversations, Dialogue Heavy, Eating Disorders, M/M, Mental Health Issues, am i projecting? probably. its fine, referenced in a very minor way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 06:02:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20077351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosidrix/pseuds/cosidrix
Summary: Akira has been acting strange lately- taking more risks, being short-tempered, putting the team and the mission in jeopardy. Yusuke seeks to confront him about it.





	Same Shit, Different Day

**Author's Note:**

> Anger issues can be a real problem for some, and with the high-stress/high-violence nature of the Metaverse, I wanted to explore how they might manifest in people like Akira. 
> 
> Very likely exists in the same universe as my other P5 work, "Boy Meets Boy, Boy Melts Boy". This could be considered a predecessor, but each can be read independently. Enjoy!

Go to school, go to the Metaverse, go home. Rise and shine. Rinse and repeat. Same shit, different day. 

“He’s a criminal, you know.”

“Stay away from him if you know what’s good for you.”

“He’s gonna lose it. He could _ kill _ someone.”

Akira debates this, chewing on the end of his pen. Sure, of course he could. It’s kind of what he does nowadays. And it’s not like he doesn’t like it, which… isn’t something he feels up to spending time thinking about right now. 

Go to school, go to the Metaverse, go home. Rise and shine. Rinse and repeat. Same shit, different day. 

He wasn’t born with an angry spirit. He doesn’t consider himself of a violent nature. There’s just so much in this world that’s tempting to introduce your first four knuckles to. So much that’s begging for it. So much that if anything, he believes he should be commended for his self control. 

Same shit, different day. 

A shadow catches him by the front of his shirt with a slimy, wretched claw, brings their faces close together and blinks fast with blinding blue eyes. “Tell me we’re different.” He plunges the business end of his dagger into the belly of the beast and stumbles backwards out of reach. It dies without giving Akira so much of a blink of reprieve. _ We’re different because all my ugly is behind a mask. _

He spends all day safe where his only foes are snickering schoolgirls in hallways, spends his nights grinding the heel of his boot into the repugnant face of the enemy. A more poetic man might say he’s free in different ways but Akira is not a more poetic man. He kicks his feet up in class onto the seat in front of him and fashions lockpicks with little thought. Some people were born to be prisoners, he muses. 

When he sleeps, he dreams of sticky black and slick red. When he sleeps, he dreams of metal around wrists. He dreams of bones jutting out, jutting through. He dreams he cannot catch the light that runs from him. When he sleeps, he dreams of blue haired boys. When he dreams, he sleeps with blue haired boys. 

“Lend my power?” The nasty thing runs its nasty tongue along its nasty lips and ponders. Akira is getting impatient. He runs his index finger along the curved body of the trigger, the barrel pointed firmly at this monster’s head. “What’s in it for me?”

The resounding crash of the bullet piercing the air makes even Akira flinch. He hadn’t meant to do that, hadn’t meant to let the irritation slip over him like a plastic bag over his head. The repulsiveness of the creature paints over his shoes but it’ll be gone the next time they enter the Metaverse. 

“The fuck, man?” Ryuji jabs his shoulder with the end of his bat but Akira doesn’t turn. “Could’ve at least let me get a hit in.”

The thing, were Akira generous enough to afford it even that, drenches the floor with rot and doesn’t stay there long. He closes his eyes, breathes, and keeps going. He has to keep going. Same shit, different day. 

* * *

Yusuke approaches him at what might arguably be _ the worst _ time to approach him. His body sags with fatigue. Six hours at the convenience store, three at the flower shop, and now Munehisa is snapping at him over the phone that he’s needed. Akira thinks that if he has to ride the train to Shibuya one more time today, he might off himself, but why not find out?

So in all his glory, Yusuke enters Leblanc without sparing the sign indicating its closure even a glance. Akira grinds his jaw and waits at the foot of the stairs. They have the whole cafe between them and somehow it’s still too little. Too much. Something. 

He greets him with, “I’m headed out, actually.” 

“We need to talk.”

Akira straightens up. “Yeah, well, not right now. I have a shift.”

“You have a shift at ten o’clock at night.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Akira.”

“Don’t the dorms have a curfew?”

Yusuke sets his jaw. 

“I’m headed out,” Akira repeats and heads for the door, “We can talk. Just not right now.”

Pressing his back against the door, Yusuke stands there in wait. Akira gets about three feet away before wondering how swiftly he could overtake him, but decides to go the civil route for once. “Don’t start with this.” 

“How much of a burden could it really be to offer any of us a little communication? _ Really? _”

Akira sucks his teeth, “Cool the entitlement a little.”

“_Entitlement?_” Yusuke barks out a harsh chuckle, “I understand that you’re a man of few words, but if we’re supposed to be relying on you to keep us _alive_, then you could at least--”  
“Yusuke, drop it!” Akira raises his voice as though he could drown out the last two weeks of ignored texts and missed calls. “Did you sneak all the way out here so you could corner me? Don’t you have better shit to do?”  
It was with a certain fragility that Yusuke told him, “We need to talk. I’m worried for you.”

If Akira had an ounce of empathy that wasn’t drawn tightly inward so that it may not touch anyone ever again, or perhaps any emotional capacity that wasn’t directly pointing towards the _ flight _instinct that he so rarely indulged, he might have broken at that. He might’ve told Yusuke everything. But Akira was surprisingly invested in being a creature of habit, and longed for the simplicity that came with the same shit, different day. An innate fear of disturbance. A survival instinct. 

“We all need shit. Move.”

Yusuke lifts his jaw and refuses to break Akira’s gaze. “I need you. I need you to talk to me. I need to know what’s going on here.”

“Did you fucking practice this or something?”

Yusuke slams his fist backwards into the door. “What is _wrong_ with you?”  
“What’s wrong with _you?”_ Akira shoots back intelligently, “I mean, really? Fuck, Yusuke, take a hint!”  
“I’ve taken the hint!” He takes a step forward. “I took the hint of how-- how strained you’ve been lately and we’re supposed to be a _team_. Teams work together, and I’m not putting my life in the hands of a hot-headed, seemingly bloodthirsty--”

“I said _ drop it! _” Akira spits out, “I don’t owe you, or anyone else, anything.”

“How far do you really expect that to take you?”  
Akira draws in an even breath and closes his eyes to calm down the raging in his chest. He urges himself to clear his mind, to not punch Yusuke’s teeth in, to end the trend of collateral damage for emotional childishness that he couldn’t shed. He hates the way that he is, deeply, and allows a single strand of pity screw itself up inside his stomach. He doesn’t want to hurt Yusuke. He wants to answer his questions, he wants to sate his pain, he _really _wants Yusuke to stop looking at him with confusion and hurt. He’s on fire and his instincts are tugging him in every direction before the decision is made for him and Yusuke firmly grasps the back of his neck and pulls him in, mouths meeting, and it stings like the sting of something that needs to happen, like a shot or a cold shower or the first kiss you share with someone that you know you shouldn’t. 

He doesn’t even have time to register anything about it other than the pressure on his lips before Yusuke backs away. He looks down and off to the side like a child awaiting a scolding and his eyes are wide as though even he couldn’t understand what he had done. His hand is frozen, half-extended in front of him. 

“You barge in,” Akira says evenly, “to… reprimand me about being impulsive and hot-headed and you pull a stunt like that?”  
Yusuke’s lips part, close, then open once more. “You know how I feel. You’ve known--”  
“And you picked _now _to make your move?”

“I’m being honest.”

“You’re joking. This has to be a fucking joke.”

“I’m being _honest _with you.” Yusuke draws his eyes up to look at Akira warily. “There is an exponentially more likely outcome that we are going to die than we are going to live through stealing the hearts of every evil person on the face of the Earth. You know that, I know that, everyone knows that. And we are very good at being cocky and taking risks and narrowly outsmarting our adversaries but none of us are any good at being honest with one another. So I am being honest with you, though it is frightening, and I am asking you to be honest with me, though it is frightening. Something’s happened to you and you’ve been ignoring all of our attempts to reach out to you. Leader or not, we deserve your honesty. You’ve been too rough or too sloppy or too downright mean and unless this is straightened out, The Phantom Thieves are going to disband.”  
Akira considers this. “So, what? You all sat down and had a meeting? Unionized? Are you the elected representative of sucking face and therapy?”

“No. No one sent me, no one knows I’m here.”

“You’re just assuming that we’ll disband unless I get my shit together?”

“If you call Makoto telling us she’ll willingly take your place and ban you from further missions ‘assuming’, then sure.”

Despite himself, Akira lets out a breath. His heart clenches and he struggles to hide his hurt. “You guys can’t do that. She actually said that?”

Yusuke purses his lips. “It’s not personal. It’s just… a safety hazard. You’re taking unnecessary risks, dragging us into fights with far stronger enemies-- Akira, there’s a limit to how much healing we can realistically get out of our personas. Enough is enough.”

The silence is long and tense until Akira clicks his tongue and settles into the booth to his right. He couldn’t lose the Thieves, he’s finally been given a place to put all the ugly, brutalizing parts of him and see it turn into something worth praise. He’s made friends here, he’s making a difference, or at least he’s trying very hard to. 

Yusuke crosses over to sit on the other side of the booth. He folds his hands on the table in front of him and considers his words carefully. “I wasn’t trying to upset you. That’s the last thing I wanted to do here. But I’m asking you to give me the truth for the last time before I go.”

Akira’s gaze is glued to the table between them. Neutral territory. “I don’t… do the whole talking-it-out thing.”

“I don’t do the whole kissing-my-very-intimidating-crush thing, but we’re all learning new things about ourselves tonight, aren’t we?”

Akira snorts, but there’s not a bit of humor that isn’t just as biting. “Yeah, that wasn’t something I expected. You know that doesn’t work in normal negotiations, right?”

Leaning back, Yusuke says, “It would be redundant to explain to you how I tend to panic in stressful social situations.”

“Clearly.” Akira holds back an eye roll. He isn’t about to make Yusuke feel guilty, he’s the ass here. “We’re going to have to talk about that too, you know.”  
“Yes,” Yusuke nods, “That was the point. I didn’t want to have that conversation tonight, just like how you don’t want to have this one.”

“Fair enough. So,” He gestures at Yusuke, “Begin the interrogation, officer.”  
“I don’t want it to be like that. We’re friends, just… communicate with me. Please.”

There’s a long moment of fidgeting, thinking, and debating exit routes before Akira comes to terms with the plain fact that to keep what he had worked so hard to achieve, he is going to have to do the unthinkable. He is going to have to explain, to unravel, to open a door that had been bolted shut. He screws his eyes up tight and rubbed at them. He really is so goddamn exhausted. 

“I have anger issues,” He admits from behind his hands, speaking slowly as every word pains him to voice, “I used to see someone about it when I was a kid but I haven’t gone in years. The Metaverse just… gives me a place to let that shit out, but that isn’t always a good thing. I’m a better fighter when I get angry but-- but I don’t like it, you know?”

“I can’t imagine there’s anyone who enjoys being angry.”

“Well, me, and that’s the problem.” He sighs and straightens his glasses. “Or at least I used to, and then I liked being angry too much and I had to lock it down because I couldn’t make any friends and I was constantly in trouble and it was just… it was such a mess, you don’t even know. But being in the Metaverse, having all that power, it just drags all that back to the surface. I can’t handle violence the way that other people can. I can’t just drop it and move on.”

Yusuke nods, “I understand. So, it’s not just a job to you like it is for us.”

“I can’t drop _Joker _at the door and go back to it when it’s time. I dream about being there and if I’m not there then I’m preparing to be there and if I’m not preparing then I’m thinking about being there. It’s not-- it’s not normal, and I know it’s not. I like it too much.” Akira’s stomach twists at this revelation. Every part of him is shrieking to get out of this conversation, that these were private ordeals. He clenches his jaw. “I wasn’t trying to drag anyone else into all this. That’s why I haven’t talked about it.”  
“Who else knows that this is an issue for you?”

“Uh, my parents. My old therapist. That’s about it.”  
“When was the last time you spoke to someone about it?”

He feels a knee-jerk reaction to make a joke, something like _ two minutes ago now _ to deflect the very serious spotlight he’s put on himself, but he just can’t. He doesn’t have the energy to. “Not since I was thirteen. Well, I don’t know, I sort of hinted about it with Ryuji when he was venting about his childhood but… I didn’t say that it was a real problem. I’m the leader, I have an image. I need to be trustworthy.”

Gently, Yusuke tells him, “Trust doesn’t come from shutting everyone out. I trust you much more now that you’ve admitted this than I did before. It could have been something much worse, but having a sort of mental illness--”

“I’m _ not _mentally ill,” Akira bites out. 

Yusuke pauses for a moment. When he continues, it is with a sort of practiced carefulness, “Madarame used to get very angry with me when I, uh, exhibited traits that there might be something wrong with how I functioned. Mentally speaking. He used to make me feel terrible for who I was, for these symptoms I couldn’t control. But there’s nothing abnormal about things like that. Human things, like anger, or… eating, for me, don’t come as naturally to everyone as people think that they should. It’s a process. You may never get as good at handling your anger as other people do, and there’s nothing shameful about that. Even recognizing that it’s an issue can set you on the path for getting better. We don’t have to call it a mental illness. You’re just you, and that’s alright. It’s more than alright.”

Akira chews at his lip. “I’m sorry Madarame did that to you.”

Yusuke concedes, “As am I. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. Akira, is there something that can be done to help you with this?”

“I don’t know,” Akira shrugs, “I just try not to think about it. But look where that’s gotten me.”  
“We can talk about it. It may not seem like it, but having someone else who understands how it feels can be helpful. No one else has to know.”  
“How it _feels_,” Akira repeats sarcastically, “It feels like shit. It feels like something is trying to get out of me, like that alien movie where the thing pops out of the guy’s chest. And the only way I can calm it down is to just get angrier, hit harder, punish something else. But it’s like I can never be satisfied. I always want more. So I get angier. And then the cycle repeats over and over until… until it gets to be too much for everyone, like tonight. I don’t want to hurt you guys, that’s not what I was trying to do.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I know there’s no coming out of this without everyone being scared of me. It makes me feel like a monster.”

“You’re _ not _,” Yusuke declares so decisively that it startles Akira, “You’re no worse than any of us. And I’m not afraid of you.” He reaches across the table and gently places his hand over the top of Akira’s. Akira remains very still under the touch. He continues, “That should mean something, because truthfully, I’m afraid of a lot of things. Ryuji and I have something in common, and it’s that we will never quite escape how we spent our formative years and the fears that come with them. But, Akira, you don’t scare me. It’s imperative that you understand I didn’t come here as a threat. I came here because I cared, because I didn’t want to see you go. You’re one of the only people who have ever shown me true compassion and The Phantom Thieves means as much to me as it does to you. And at risk of sounding patronizing, which I do not intend to be, I’m proud of you for sharing this with me. My lips are sealed.” 

“I thought this whole thing was about facing fears.”

“It’s not you that I’m afraid of,” Yusuke explains, “It’s even the notion of making the first move, or of going somewhere I’m potentially unwelcome, or… losing something that’s very important to me. It was an impulsive decision but I’m not sorry for it.”

Akira, with much less certainty than he would care to admit, overturns his hand to hold Yusuke’s. “I don’t want you to be sorry. But there’s better ways of seducing people that don’t include making them face their biggest fears.”

“Ah, I wasn’t aware. I’ll try harder next time.” Yusuke chuckles, “Regardless, seducing you wasn’t what I was here to do.”  
“Right, it was guilt tripping. _Hey, I told you I had a crush on you, now give me all the information about your mental health history or lose your best friends._”

Frowning, Yusuke said, “It wasn’t that, either.”  
“Joking.” Akira lets go of his hand (there’s a limit to how much intimacy he can take in one day and he was close to reaching his threshold; it was like an automated voice on the telephone: _the level of understanding you are trying to get at is carefully guarded at the moment, please try again later_). “You promise this isn’t going to get out to the rest of the group?”  
“Yes, I promise. It’s none of their business. But--”  
“Get a hold of myself, yeah. I know.”  
“I understand that it’s difficult. But you have many people who are on your side and are willing to listen, including myself.”

“Yeah, well,” Akira glances up at the clock by the entrance. “That’s all you’re getting out of me tonight. I wasn’t kidding when I said I had a shift tonight.”

Yusuke furrows his brows. “Where?”

“The airsoft shop.”

“Ah.” He looks away before asking in a way that makes it clear to Akira he has officially ran out of all his boldness, “I’d like to continue talking about this further sometime. I believe there’s more we haven’t covered.”  
Akira agrees. There was that whole kiss thing that hasn’t been truly addressed, but the clock was ticking until Iwai started blowing up his phone again. “Come by tomorrow, if you’re not busy. After school.” 

Yusuke nods. “Yes. I can do that.” 

Glad to be free of this nerve-wracking conversation, Akira excuses himself from the booth. “You really should get out of here before they lock you out of your dorm for the night.”

“Indeed.” Yusuke stands as well. “Thank you for talking to me. And thank you for… not being upset over what I did. I understand that there were infinitely better ways of handling that and I'm going to be positively kicking myself forever over how stupid it was and--"

“Relax.” Akira insists in a way that was equal parts commanding and affectionate. “I won’t go airing your dirty laundry if you don’t air mine. We’ll talk about it. I’ve known for awhile, and I’m not upset about it.”  
Yusuke nods again. “Thank you, Akira.”

Swiping the keys to the cafe, Akira follows Yusuke to the door. He feels bare in an entirely new and not wholly displeasing way. He trusts Yusuke to keep his confession between them as long as necessary, and that alone was very new. _ Trust. _ A part of his mind that he doesn’t have complete control over pipes up with the thought that he doesn’t want to send Yusuke home for the night, and Akira stares weakly at the back of his head as they exit the shop.

He doesn’t press the thought any further. He simply does not want to handle more revealing truths about himself. At the very least, he can confidently say that this was _ not _the same shit, different day. The promise of a future in which he doesn’t feel alone in his rage, doesn’t feel stuck in a self-destructive loop, doesn’t feel like the instrument of his own uncontrollable aspects warms him on this cold Yongen-Jaya night. 

**Author's Note:**

> There's obviously going to be another conversation between these two, and I do intend to write it sometime, so be on the look out for a second installment. Thank you for reading, feedback is always much appreciated.


End file.
